Saturday, February 07, 2009

Never mind how the getaway car goes from sideswiping a fire hydrant to the bottom part of the hydrant puncturing up through the bottom of the car (not cutting through it from the side) and protruding into the passenger area.What I want to know is whether the filmmakers are saying that our emerging hero, who's still in step 2 (refusal of the call to adventure) of his his Campbellian 16ish-step monomyth even though this scene is a third of the way through the film (clearly Campbell forgot to count songs as steps in the sequence) - and I just realized that means there are still 14ish more stages to go in this mess! Nahiiiin! Or "Neeee!" since we're in Prague - also has latent virility yet to be tested and spring forth. I'm just not sure. It's all so remarkably nuanced.

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Hey Beth - Red42 is out of town for a few weeks as she is working in India on a charity health project. She will be doing hundreds of eye tests a day, dispensing glasses and trying to help people as much as she can to fix any vision/eye health problems. Which is all a prelude to the bit where I steal her very succint review of Drona - "All that enigmatic walking...and it still goes nowhere!"I could see what they were trying to do, sort of, but it just didn't work at all. It was a huge yawn. The scary puppets were a highlight, although I did think the lair could have benefited from a designer who understood the principles of Lair Design. Clearly, they had not read your thread on that :) I was also disturbed to find that the secret of life and the universe was hidden in what looked like a bedazzled toy box. Enjoy! (PS - I got Dharam-Veer today so will watch in the next week or so)

I made it up to intermission, and then walked out. Walking out on a movie is HUGE for me, I do it once in 6 years. So, I'm reckoning that your first what the blazes is going to be a million what the blazes before you are through the film!

I enjoyed Drona but I realize that it was by no means a good movie. It wasn't even in the flawed but genius category that I stick Tashan in.

Drona is more akin to Love Story 2050 - poorly executed but with a good gem of a story buried underneath everything. The scenes of Abhishek in the beginning were so appealing, as was the demon, Priyanka's bodyguard character, and poor put-upon Jaya. Where the film really failed was the follow through on the set-up. Abhishek is NOT a graceful actor. He couldn't pull off any of the fight scenes convincingly. If only the plot had kept him Harry Potterish, an average man sent to fulfill a big prophecy, it would have flowed better. I could have also done without the hodge-podge of fantasy tropes shoved in randomly towards the end.

Still, it was a very pretty movie - a re-edited and tightened version could be quite good...

Drona holds the distinction of being the only movie I slept through the second half of. Magically (pun intended) woke up smiling to the end credits, knowing full well I didn't care to know what happened. =)

hmmmm. ok so this Drona had nothing to do with the Mahabharata then? i was so confused by the high tech costumes but sort of guessed that maybe it was a futuristic retelling of an ancient story. craziness.

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